Epic Snow Queen
by AlmightyLordPhlebotium
Summary: Gerda's true love was taken, so she takes action. By selling her apartment to buy weapons and supplies for her quest!
1. Chapter 1

"ONWARD, MY BRETHREN!" shouted a sword wielding angel while a dark winged shape was charging through the heavenly platoons.

The terrifying demon easily shrugged off a barrage of angel attacks and continued to climb through the air while clutching a giant mirror in front of him.

"Hur hur hur..."he laughed "YOU SHALL SEE YOUR TRUE NATURE, FOOLISH ANGELS!"

He lifted the mirror and pointed it at his attackers, who clutched their faces in pain at the horror that they saw.

"I WILL MAKE YOU ANSWER FOR YOUR ARROGANCE!"

As the demon gained altitude, his mirror made a louder and louder hum that changed to a piercing ringing and his mirror shattered before he could reach heaven. His shard-covered body fell toward the ground.

Grandmother, Kai and Gerda were sitting next to a warm fireplace. Gerda rested her head against Kai's shoulder while both were wrapped together under a warm blanket.

"Oh, there's a lot of snow bees swarming outside the window." Said Grandmother

"They look like snowflakes to me." Said Gerda drowsily.

"Yes they are. And they are alive. The Snow Queen controls them."

"Really? Tell us more, grandma." Asked Kai.

"The snow bees are magical. The Snow Queen is like a queen bee to them. She flies where the swarm is thickest. She is the largest of them all and flies through places that are always cold during summer. At night, she draws those frost patterns you find on windows, like castles and flowers. She is also a cruel and fickle queen. In the best case, she freezes her human victims to death." Said Grandmother.

"And in the worst case?" asked Gerda in fear.

"In the worst case, she kidnaps a human that is useful to her, and makes them her slave until they are no longer useful."

"What happens when they outlived their usefullness?"

Grandmother didn't say anything.

"Just let her come. If the Snow Queen is so bad, then I'll melt her on a stove!" said Kay.

"Oh, my brave little darling. It's better never to meet her at all."

When everyone was getting to sleep, Kai looked through the window. The familiar snowy streets were replaced by a black void. A shape slowly formed to reveal a white-skinned and white haired girl in a blue dress beckoning for Kai to come with her. He quickly closed the curtains before peeking through them again. Everything looked normal now. Kay just sighed and decided that it was just his imagination.


	2. Chapter 2

Years later, Gerda's parents left the apartment to their daughter to do as she wishes. It was not big or comfortable, but she could keep making payments while the land grew in price from her job in a car repair shop. Unlike Kai, who got a scholarship and supported his grandmother while his parents made infrequent visits from their jobs overseas.

One afternoon, both of them were watering the roses on the roof of Kai's house.

"Whoa!" said Kai when the wind almost ripped the hat off his head "the weather is getting extra nasty."

"Come inside, sweetie." Said grandma "there's a cyclone coming."

"A minute, grams. Hey, Gerda! Gimme a hand here." Said Kai while moving the boxes indoors.

The wind picked up speed and by the time the couple reached the last box filled with soil, the wind ripped half of the roses out.

"Ah!" said Kai while clutching his eye.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm fine. Let me bring the roses and ask grandma for a med kit." Kay was covered in cuts and his left eye was bleeding.

Back inside, grandma cut Kai's shirt to avoid rubbing the cuts on his body and pushing the glass shards deeper. She was pulling pieces of glass form his body and applying antiseptic while Gerda was looking in his left eye and washing it with a soft wet cloth. At first he was wincing in pain at every pull and touch of the alcohol wipe, but soon started taking the pain silently.

"Let me do it." He said in irritation while grabbing the tweezers from his grandmother's hands and started quickly yanking bloody pieces of glass from his body and placing them in the same plastic box that his healers did.

"Careful, baby boy" said grandmother "you might hurt yourself more."

"I'm a grown man, grandmother. I can take care of myself."

"Oh, Kai. Doesn't that hurt?" asked Gerda while cringing at Kai's barbaric self-surgery.

"Very much. Who cares. It's just nerve signals. And since the human body contains the amount of blood at one eleventh of the total weight, at my sixty-three kilograms I have five point seven kilograms of blood. I won't die of blood loss. And don't make these faces, Gerda. It's not that besides, my body is producing endorphins to dull the pain."

"What about your eye?"

"Let's see." Kai closed his right eye "seems fine."

"What about that huge cut on your chest?" asked grandmother.

Kai placed a mirror to his chest and opened the wound quite far, much to his caretakers' horror.

"Just a cut. Just give me some silk thread, a crescent carpet needle, flint, steel, and a wooden taper."

"Oh no you don't!" said Gerda strictly. "We will call emergency right now and in the meanwhile, we will bandage this wound in case it starts bleeding."

"But-"

"No buts!"

"Fine" said Kai while grumbling under his breath "...what a waste of time and taxpayer's money."

"What was that?"

"I said, may I use the antiseptic, Nurse Gerda? Unless you have other objections."

"Fine, Mister Grumpy Pants!" said Gerda irritably "we'll be calling the ambulance for your ungrateful butt in the next room. Feel free to show thanks once you decide to stop whining, you jerk."

"What?" said Kai in confusion "but my buttocks are undamaged. Shouldn't it be ungrateful torso?"

He scratched his head in contemplation before turning to the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and cotton swabs in fascination and started wiping his wounds.

"OOOH! A catalysis disproportionation reaction between the enzyme catalase and hydrogen peroxide producing breaking down into oxygen and water!"

Kay picked up a bloody piece of glass with a pair of tweezers and stared at it through a magnifying glass before tasting the blood with his tongue. He squeezed a drop of hydrogen peroxide on it and stared at the foam in fascination.

"Oh, what are you doing with that junk?" said grandma while Kai was putting a cling wrap-covered Tupperware box into the freezer "throw those darn things into the trash."

"What does it look like, grandmother?" said Kai in with anger in his voice. "I am freezing my blood cells to examine them under the microscope later at the university."

"Why would you do something so gross?"

"Unlike you, I see beauty in science. And if you do not share my love of knowledge, grandmother, then you do not want to receive the money paid by my scholarship for your house and food."

"Are you threatening to kick your grandmother out?"

"No, I am merely warning you. Your and Gerda's lack of logical thinking is causing me high levels of negative emotion."

RING! RING! The doorbell sounded.

"Oh, that's the doctor making a house call." Said Grandma.

"I came here as fast as I could." Said the grey-haired doctor "I was told that you have a wound that requires stitches."

"Nonsense. I can take care of everything myself."

"Unless you have a legal diploma in medicine, no you may not. I am compelled by law to give you a check-up to avoid a malpractice suit."

"Oh" Kai's eyes widened "right away, doctor."

He proceeded to unravel his bandages before allowing the doctor to cut them off with safety scissors. The physician examined Kai's chest wound, looked into his eyes using a pen light, checked his pulse, heartbeat and breathing, blood pressure and even pressed his fingernail to count the capillary refill time in case Kai was suffering from shock.

"Well, madam," he said to Kai's grandmother, who was hugging Gerda "Your so-called 'deep wound that requires stitches' is actually a very minor keloid tissue formation, and his eye is perfectly healthy. Except for some iodine for his minor cuts and maybe cosmetic procedure for the boy's manly chest scar, there's nothing that could be done. I should remind the two that the medical house calls are for emergencies only, not foolish panic attacks."

"See? I told you it was nothing. It took a well-educated professional to prove that you that female brains, despite more connections between the hemispheres, your right-hemisphere dominance and lack of spatial memory and logic once again caused inconveniences for everyone."

"See?" said the doctor "the boy makes a lot of sense. That's why there are so few female doctors and so few male nurses. It proves that a larger number of cells is superior to a more developed corpus collosum."

"It was very enlightening speaking with you, doctor." Said Kai while shaking the doctor's hand.

"Likewise, young man. I am very glad to see youth that value knowledge over time-wasting activities. Well, this still wasn't a total waste of time..." he said while oblivious to Grandmother's angry stare.

A few moments later...

"How dare you assault me? I will make you pay for that!"

"Just try, Doctor Heinz Schultz from 133 Marigold Avenue Postal Box 6m6 r9m."

"That was a threat! I'll have you arrested!"

"They're welcome to try." Said grandmother while breaking a brick against her without any pain or injury "nobody will expect an old lady to defend herself, right?"

The doctor was going to say something, but closed his mouth, grabbed his bag and started running away.

Back inside, grandma and Gerda saw Kai looking at rose buds through a magnifying glass, cutting rose buds and throwing them in a trash can.

"What are you doing?" both females asked him in horror.

"As it should be obvious, I am removing inferior buds that are starting to wilt or be eaten by worms and preparing space for naturally hardier specimens. Don't worry, I will breed the survivors by replanting the new root bulbs, cutting stems and growing roots on them in liquid media, manually pollinate them using special tools and buy more, commercial rose breeds to cross-pollinate. With a bit of artificial selection, precisely selected pesticide and fertilizer formula and of course and abundance of Punnet Squares and labels printed, we will have a breed of roses with no flaws."

Kai looked expectantly at Garda and grandma, both staring with their mouths opened.

"You mean with no soul!" shouted Gerda "Ever since that stupid hurricane, you've been acting like a cold-blooded creep!" She started crying while running upstairs and leaped over to her balcony.

"What? I try to help everyone, and you get angry at me for no reason. Tell me what I've done wrong, grandmother. Grandmother?"

Grandmother walked away while muttering something about a headache.

"Fine! You don't want my help, well I don't care about you."

Kai kicked the bucket full of severed rose buds, and started packing his backpack and taking out his academy uniform to head off to the library for some nice, relaxing homework sessions.

A muscular old woman was cooking an entire bull inside a cave while an Angel of Death was snoring next to the wall and clutching his scythe like a teddy bear.

"Hey mother, hey mother!" said the South Wind excitedly "you won't believe what happened. I blew a bunch of glass shards on a boy, and two of them turned him into a cold-hearted scholar that only sees dad things and feels no emotions in revenge for him calling the weather nasty!"

"You injured a human and destroyed his spirit? You know what that means." said the muscular hag

"The punishment bag?" asked the Wind timidly.

"Yes." his mother nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

After the incident with Kai, Gerda stopped talking with him. Grandma invited Gerda's close friend Ida, and even bigger flower enthusiast to try and salvage something from Kai's heartless Holocaust of flowers while he was busy studying. Ironically, the roses from Kai's Final Floral Solution grew extra big, extra beautiful and extra fragrant while Kai's chosen Ubermensh Spartan Super Flowers wilted and died quickly, despite everyone's effort to save them. Ida even spoke to them, kissed them told them how beautiful they are.

Incidentally, Garda and grandmother swore an oath to Ida not to tell anyone that those particular roses impersonating ancient Greek warriors every night, meeting other roses in a group totalling 300 fighting an army of Purple Persian Shield Plants that could fill a sport's field with their quantity. That was the most exciting thing they've ever seen, but nobody would believe them anyway.

"BLASPHEMY? MADNESS? THIS! IS! DER TOWN OF PFFAFFENDORF!" screamed the lead rose while kicking a purple plant messenger from the balcony. Apparently Kai was wrong- a Spartan flower's greatest glory is to wilt in battle, not bloom forever.

Winter came and the rose bulbs were lovingly packaged. Kai wouldn't shut up about how beautiful snowflakes were and went on and on and on about geometry until Gerda was ready to throttle him with her own two hands.

One morning, Gerda rented a pair of skis and was carrying them up the slope on her shoulder while occasionally giving the middle finger to the assholes on the mechanized ski lift that were laughing at her for walking. Walking uphill in winter, tightening car parts with a manual wrench, and other self-inflicted torture. A few more years, and she could survive a martial art session against granny without any serious injuries.

"Ah, fresh mountain air," said Gerda while standing on her skis and looking through her binoculars "trees, children tobogganing, a deer, Kai on a snowboard pulled by some albino floozy's magical flying sleigh by a waterskiing cable."

Hmmm,

"WHAT THE FUCK!#^%#!#%"

"I'M GONNA STICK THAT MOTHAFUCKING BASTARD'S TESTICLES INTO THE SNOW TILL THEY'RE BLUER THAN ASPHYXIATING PAPA SMURF!"

Gerda was skiing downhill at a ridiculous speed while accompanied by an epic fast-paced soundtrack with a prominent beat. She saw the Rei Ayanami impersonator's sled stop and Kai skid to a stop right next to her while she was helped out by her huge brutish cloaked driver. She...was...kissing Kai!

"Hands off my Kai, you jailbait Tilda Swinton wannabe!" shouted Gerda while preparing a technique taught by the grandma of the guy she'll beat up after finishing with the Snow White "AVALANCHE IMPACT!"

*Basically, it requires the leg strength to jump twenty feet into the air from a standing position, (which required running uphill with bags of sand strapped one's body) so that the user can change direction really quickly downhill in order to punch them while going between 100 and 200 miles per hour. And that required balancing on one fist for one hour on each arm on a block of ice (while weighed down by twice as many bags of sand). *

GRAB. Gerda's fist was caught by the thug in the huge brown cloak.

"Here's my advice, kid. Make like a tree and leaf..."

The creature threw off his cloak to reveal himself to be a human-shaped tree with a skull for a face.

"...BEFORE I SNAP YOU LIKE A TWIG!"

"I'm gonna kill you just for saying that!" shrieked Gerda while throwing a flurry of punches and kicks with her ski boots after ejecting her skis. Her strikes left deep imprints on the monster, who merely laughed.

"I maybe a tree, but I'm not a lumbering brute!" before dodging Gerda's punch and sending her flying with one of his. "And speaking of plants, mistress' Snow Queen's flowers are done with her victim. Her tulips touched the boy's!"

Indeed, Snow Queen broke off her kiss with Kai, for which she had to levitate to reach the taller boy's face due to her stature of a doll rather than an older temptress.

"Kai, you two-timer!" shouted Gerda before noticing Kai kneeling on the snow, barely conscious.

Kai's hair started changing from blonde to blue in the manner of flowing ink and he started hovering above ground. His blue eyes changed from human ones to blue disks without irises and Gerda saw triangular symbols appear on his cheeks.

"Kai?"

"Servant. Attack." Said the white girl in a chilly tone.

Kai moved too fast for her to follow and sent her flying through the snow with a punch. She barely had time to stand up, blood coming from her mouth, when Kai appeared again.

"Kai...(cough)... it's me...Gerda..." she could barely talk due to pain.

This time instead of punching Kai created an explosion of icy cold that sent Gerda into the air. She was blinded by the cold and could not even feel her face. She felt herself lifted into the air by her left arm by an icy hand until her feet no longer touched the snowy ground.

Gerda felt Kai's face despite her face being frozen.

"I'm...sorry...Kai" she whispered with her frozen lips before using her last chance to reach for a kiss. His lips were less frozen than hers, and she thought that even her death would be worth that moment. Her wish was granted as the worst pain of her life spread through Kai's right hand, through her left arm and side before being replaced with nothing.

"Good bye, my love." were the last thoughts through Gerda's mind before darkness claimed her.


	4. Chapter 4

Darkness. Is this how it feels to die? Thought Gerda while floating through a void. She saw a scary angel with black wings and a scythe extending his hand to her.

"Are you here to take me to the afterlife, angel? Am I worthy of Heaven, Hell, or Limbo?" Said Gerda while taking the angel's hand.

"Your time has not yet come, child." Said the angel in a soothing rumble. "You were destined to keep living, if not for interference from a South Wind, who blew glass shards at your beloved man. It is the two shards from a cursed mirror that I have last seen centuries ago that were embedded inside of him that turned him cruel and heartless and attracted the Queen to him. Now, it is time to return, Gerda."

Gerda tried to open her eyes, but couldn't even if she had no bandages on her face.

"Oh Gerds, sweetie, you're alive!" cried Ida and Gerda felt the older girl's hug.

"Just barely" said the doctor "if it wasn't for Officer Roberts, you wouldn't have made it."

"It's all in a day's work, Doctor. Shame about her pretty face, though."

"He ain't no officer." Grumbled grandma "stupid mercenary doesn't even know that you never defrost snowbite if there is even the slightest darn chance for it to freeze!"

"Hey, I'm a soldier, not a doctor." Answered the soldier defensively

"I'm surprised that you haven't gone through a basic first aid course during your training, sir."

"I did. I got court-marshalled and discharged before I could repeat it" said the soldier in embarrassment "I...kind of slept through it." He added quietly "That's why I'm a mercenary." He added in an embarrassed whisper."

"That's a shame." Said the doctor "if your...companions discouraged you from it or Miss Gerda stayed inside the large canine's mouth..."

"What?" said Gerda in confusion.

"...she would keep both her sight and arm."

Hearing this, Gerda touched her empty shoulder socket and also noticed a large dog on her lap.

"Oh, is this the dog that saved me?" she said while hugging the dog "Oh, what's your name, doggie? Who's a cute doggie? You—"

"I may only follow orders to rescue you, Lady Gerda, though I apologize for your loss of arm due to my master's judgement" said the dog on her lap "as for your other questions, I have no name and my handsomeness as a pet is subjective of the human's preferences."

"Yeah, sorry" said two voices, deep and even deeper rumbling one from outside the window.

"Aaah!" screeched Gerda "a talking dog that sounds like Kai!" while everyone else had embarrassed sweatdrops near their heads.

"Um, hello? asked a female voice entering Gerda's Gas and Grease car repair. "Anyone here?"

"May I help you?" shouted Gerda from behind a door.

"My stepfather sent me to buy spark plugs. He specifically asked for flat surface discharge ones."

"He'd better not be using a Wankel engine. I hate those" said Gerda while touching Braille labels and fingering the parts with her remaining arm "is it a car, boat, motorbike or plane? Is it two or four or six stroke? Is it a V-engine or the low-fuel efficiency piece of junk Wankel?"

"I'm not sure about those. I'm not an expert at engines-GASP!" She saw Gerda walking out with a Braille-labelled colour-illustrated catalogue in her only hand.

"You can read this for me and see if you recognize something-you did not just gasp at me. Is something wrong with my face?"

"Your left arm! It's like my legs!" she ran up to Gerda with a loud tapping to grab her hand.

"Why are you wearing tap dancing shoes oh my god!" Gerda felt leg prosthesis with a very complex mechanism carved completely from wood with a few powerful springs attached in her hand, chest level. "Oh my fucking god! Put it back on!"

"It's still attached. And stop blaspheming. I've lost my legs that way, before my stepfather built these" The girl took her leg from Gerda's hand while balancing on the other one, lifted it above her head before putting it down.

"He did?Oh, and you lost yours after being a dancer. I'm so sorry!" said Gerda while hugging her client.

"Not really. It's a long story. I'll be back tomorrow with my stepdad."

"Nonsense." Said Gerda while putting a CLOSED signed on her door, putting a jacket on and taking a cane "You can tell me on the way home."

"Okay. It all started when I lost my mother. A rich old lady noticed me because of my crudely-made red shoes attracting her attention, took me in and threw them out..."

Years ago...

The lights were flashing and music flowed through Karen's soul as her body was moving in perfect rhythm. Ecstasy filled her every cell and Karen felt like she could dance forever. It was as if her body was moving on its own. That would be very fine were it merely a metaphor, but she was terrified to find that her body literally couldn't stop. The girl's hot feeling from vigorous exercise was replaced by the cold sweat of fear. Karen saw the giant ghostly face of the old crazy war veteran that complimented her shoes at church under the ceiling.

"What pretty shoes, little lady, hahahahahaha!" the weird apparition echoed through the building.

"Help me! I can't stop dancing!"

People laughed at her, stared in confusion, or quietly walked away.

Karen hid in a cemetery and her body started moonwalking and breakdancing.

"Damn, check out yo sweet moves, be-yotch. They be so fly!" said someone from behind.

"Please help me!"

"And why the fuck would I take yo muthafuckin shoes..." said the man with a huge afro and white wings and wearing a large golden cross around his neck sitting on a gravestone "If I motherfucking enchanted them myself for what you bitch did to yo mamma?"

"Who are you? I haven't done anything! Please make them stop."

"Here's a yo mama joke for you." the afro angel said while taking a sword from his giant hair. "yo mama so fat, she went to heaven from a heart attack while you were jammin an grooving it instead of callin the motherfucking ambulance!"

"I'm so sorry!"

"Sorry ain't gonna be enough." He pointed his sword at Karen "here is the bible quote in whose creation I took part:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of the evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children."

Karen's lungs were burning from exertion by now.

"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers."

Karen closed her eyes, expecting him to smite her white honkey bitch ghetto booty.

"And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!" the angel put his sword back inside his afro.

"But...I...ah, ...though... you were gonna...kill me..."

"Not me, bitch. The shoes will. You will dance until your death, rain or snow, heat or cold, unable to get inside due to your dancing. And your dead, decaying body and then its skeleton will continue to dance as a warning to sinners." He said while spreading his wings and flying away.

"And so I continued to dance for years" said Karen while demonstrating a seemingly physically impossible feat of bending her spine backwards until her hair touched the floor and going to a hand stand "And developed quite the abilities."

"Oh, you poor girl!"said both Gerda and Karen's stepfather, who was biting a pink handkerchief, while hugging each other.

"I did get quite the tips while being a street performer and used some of it to buy new food and clothing."

"But mostly helping others..."

Karen was dancing on a street corner wearing an improvised burlap toga in front of her cheap fedora hat for catching donations. Her dancing was truly a curse: she was sweaty and dirty and covered in painful sores and lice were jumping through her long hair, and she couldn't take a shower or get a haircut due to people asking too many questions and the danger of running (or dancing) with scissors. Her only possessions other than the clothes on her back were a small cauldron and a non magical set of flint and steel that does not summon three giant talking dogs that sound like Gerda's boyfriend when they speak.

Nevertheless, she has come to love her condition. Her lungs were no longer burning from exertion and Karen was in a constant endorphin-induced runner's high. The beauty of her dancing made people give her quite a lot of money thinking that she is a professional performer, and she bought herself burlap cloth from a gardening store instead of foul-smelling used potato sacks and learned to wrap it in a very comfortable way. She used her other money to regularly buy either potatoes, rice or beans with either butter or oil as well as beef jerky for a flavourless but high-calorie meal. Life wasn't so bad, but she didn't dare to say it out loud, due to the angel sitting next to her and polishing his sword.

"Lookie here, boys. The little dancer is quite popular here." Said one of the anthropomorphic swans in leather jackets while looking at all the money in Karen's fedora. Of course, the angel disappeared to let Karen fend for herself. What an asshole! "We wouldn't want someone to break the pretty human's legs so she couldn't dance anymore, right guys?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, boss!" everyone nodded.

Karen ignored them.

"Looky here, toots." Said the head swan while taking out a switchblade. "This is Drake 'Ugly Duckling' Swanson's territory. He ain't not appreciate people ain't not payin deir protection money, capice?"

Karen did not say anything, prompting the very fowl criminals to charge her.

Karen spun from the path of one thug's stab and kicked him so that he rammed the wall with his face. She did a back flip to move behind while grabbing her hat.

"Let's rock, boys." Said Karen while wearing her fedora from behind her victims.

Karen moonwalked from one thug's slash and threw the coins in her face really hard to stun him. She spun on one leg to kick his friend in the head and kicked him while doing a hand stand when he recovered.

"Shouldn't have messed with me, you turkeys." Said Karen while walking off with her packed belongings and not bothering to pick up the money.

It took a few moments for the pain from Swan Mafia bullets ripping through Karen to register. When it did, her body was pierced with agony much greater than the pain of physical exertion from her shoes. Except that one by one, the thugs exploded in a shower of blood and feathers from an unknown gunman's incredibly powerful weapon. She couldn't feel her legs anymore.

Karen was going to thank her rescuer, but saw the muzzle of a gun pointed at her.

"Give me a reason not to kill you along with the others." Said the gun's owner.

"I...I..." Karen was paralyzed with both pain and fear, and the adrenaline made her barely capable of speech "if-f-f you k-k-kill me, at-t-t l-least-t l-let m-me."

"You've got 5 seconds. Five..."

"Let me pray in church for forgiveness before I die!"

"Two...one."

The darkness claimed Karen and she saw the ghetto angel giving her a thumbs up sign.

"You're forgiven." He said.

"Wait a minute." Said Gerda to Karen's stepfather. "I thought you killed her!"

"You of all people should know about near-death experiences, Gerda. You did tell us about yours." said the old hermit while Gerda looked a bit embarrassed "I healed little Karen and dealt with those annoying shoes. After all, I can heal as well as I can damage, and only kill badguys."

The huge bearded man gestured to his diplomas and war medals covering the kitchen wall completely.

"Speaking of which, we both survived a meeting with the Snow Bitch and kept our scars. You have yours on your body while mine are inside my head. You can't imagine seeing your entire squadron as frozen zombies trying to stab you with icicle arms. This is what I went through as an army doctor. So, I've got a surprise for you, as one survivor to another."

The grizzled veteran got up and returned carrying an object.

"What is this?" asked Gerda

"This" he blew the dust away "is a prosthetic eye. My private surgery wasn't getting much business, you see. I can install it for you, but for a price when you have the time to recover from the surgery."

"You can? We can do it right now! My shop is closed anyway." said Gerda excitedly "Please, please, please! I'll do anything you want. Hey, what's that thumping?"

"That's my old feet." said Karen "We attached them to some cables to them to make them power an electric generator. Wanna see? Ooops!" she clapped her hands over her mouth.

"As soon as I'm no longer blind."said Gerda "Oh, and Doc, or Officer if you prefer, what is the payment for my eye?"

"Well" he chuckled "I'll install it in exchange for you installing my car's spark plugs when you get your eye."


End file.
